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Floppinux – An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy, 2025 Edition

krzysztofjankowski.com

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Re: Floppinux – An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy, 2025 Edition

#61

Post by 2b3a51 »

blackhaz wrote: post #43
flomo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think MS Word was basically feature-complete with v4.0 which ran on a 1MB 68000 Macintosh. Obviously they have added lots of UI and geegaws, but the core word processing functionality hasn't really changed at all. (edit to say I'm obviously ignoring i8n etc.)

My dad used to run a whole commercial bank on MS Office 4.0 and a 386. (A small one, but still!)

Small, medium and large colleges in the UK ran on Novell servers and 386 client machines with windows for workgroups and whatever Office they came with. I think the universities were using unixy minicomputers then though. Late 80s early 90s. Those 386 machines were built like tanks and survived the tender ministrations of hundreds of students (not to mention some of the staff).

Re: Floppinux – An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy, 2025 Edition

#62

Post by wink »

2b3a51 wrote: post #59
sockbot wrote: post #10

Over Christmas I tried to actually build a usable computer from the 32-bit era. Eventually I discovered that the problem isn't really the power of the computer. Computers have been powerful enough for productivity tasks for 20 years, excepting browser-based software. The two main problems I ran into were 1) software support at the application layer, and 2) video driver support. There is a herculean effort on the part…

My 32 bit laptop is a Thinkpad T42 from 2005 which has a functioning CDROM, and which can run Slackware15 stable 32bit install OKish, so I haven't tried any of this but: My first thought: How about using a current computer to run qemu then mounting the Lenny iso as an image and installing to a qemu hard drive? Then dd the hard drive image to your 32bit target. (That might need access to a hard drive caddy depending o…

I have OpenBSD running on my old 2004 Centrino notebook (I might be lagging 2-3 versions behind, I don't really use it, just play around with it) and it's fine until you start playing YouTube videos, that is kinda hard on the CPU.

Re: Floppinux – An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy, 2025 Edition

#63

Post by hilti »

pjmlp wrote: post #58
tombert wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Computers have been powerful enough for productivity tasks for 20 years It baffles me how usable Office 97 still. I was playing with it recently in a VM to see if it worked as well as I remembered, and it was amazing how packed with features it is considering it's nearing on thirty. There's no accounting for taste but I prefer the old Office UI to the ribbon, there's a boatload of formatting options for Word, there…

Except for Internet surfing, a plain Amiga 500 would be good enough for what many folks do at home, between gaming, writing letters, basic accounting and the occasional flyers for party invitations.

Or controlling the heating and AC systems at 19 schools under its jurisdiction using a system that sends out commands over short-wave radio frequencies

https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a...

Re: Floppinux – An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy, 2025 Edition

#64

Post by johnisgood »

justapassenger wrote: post #34
tombert wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Computers have been powerful enough for productivity tasks for 20 years It baffles me how usable Office 97 still. I was playing with it recently in a VM to see if it worked as well as I remembered, and it was amazing how packed with features it is considering it's nearing on thirty. There's no accounting for taste but I prefer the old Office UI to the ribbon, there's a boatload of formatting options for Word, there…

Last true step change in computer performance for general home computing tasks was SSD.

In 20 years? That is nothing.

Re: Floppinux – An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy, 2025 Edition

#65

Post by szszrk »

heinternets wrote: post #2

I miss the floppy disk sound and the anticipation then joy of finally loading into the OS.

The omnipresent coil whine in almost every laptop I got in past 15 years, gives me at least that nostalgic noise that says "computer is working".

Whish coil whine was configurable :)

Re: Floppinux – An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy, 2025 Edition

#66

Post by dariosalvi78 »

jsdevrulethewr wrote: post #50
sockbot wrote: post #10

Over Christmas I tried to actually build a usable computer from the 32-bit era. Eventually I discovered that the problem isn't really the power of the computer. Computers have been powerful enough for productivity tasks for 20 years, excepting browser-based software. The two main problems I ran into were 1) software support at the application layer, and 2) video driver support. There is a herculean effort on the part…

> Eventually I discovered that the problem isn't really the power of the computer. Nope, that’s a modern problem. That’s what happens when the js-inmates run the asylum. We get shitty bloated software and 8300 copies of a browser running garage applications written by garbage developers. I can’t wait to see what LLMs do with that being the bulk of their training. Exciting!

not gonna disagree with you, but, as a solo developer who needs to reach audiences of all sorts, from mobile to powerful servers, the most reasonable choice today is Javascript. JS, with its "running environments" (Chrome, Node, etc.), has done what Java was supposed to do in the 90s. It's a pity that Java didn't hold its promises, but the blame is to put all on the companies that ran the show back then (and running the show now).

Re: Floppinux – An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy, 2025 Edition

#67

Post by hilti »

blackhaz wrote: post #43
flomo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think MS Word was basically feature-complete with v4.0 which ran on a 1MB 68000 Macintosh. Obviously they have added lots of UI and geegaws, but the core word processing functionality hasn't really changed at all. (edit to say I'm obviously ignoring i8n etc.)

My dad used to run a whole commercial bank on MS Office 4.0 and a 386. (A small one, but still!)

I love this story where a C64 in Poland rans a Auto repair shop.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/a23139/c...

Re: Floppinux – An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy, 2025 Edition

#68

Post by hilti »

blackhaz wrote: post #42
tombert wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Computers have been powerful enough for productivity tasks for 20 years It baffles me how usable Office 97 still. I was playing with it recently in a VM to see if it worked as well as I remembered, and it was amazing how packed with features it is considering it's nearing on thirty. There's no accounting for taste but I prefer the old Office UI to the ribbon, there's a boatload of formatting options for Word, there…

I have MS Office 4.0 installed on my 386DX-40 with 4 MB of RAM and 210 MB HDD, running Windows 3.1, and it is good. Most of the common features are there, it's a perfectly working office setup. The major thing missing is font anti-aliasing. Office 95 and 97 are absolutely awesome.

Totally agree! I‘d pay definitely $300 (lifetime license) for a productivity suite like Windows 95 design and Office 95 with no bloatware and ads. Just pure speed and productivity.

Re: Floppinux – An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy, 2025 Edition

#69

Post by jabl »

zokier wrote: post #39
sockbot wrote: post #10

Over Christmas I tried to actually build a usable computer from the 32-bit era. Eventually I discovered that the problem isn't really the power of the computer. Computers have been powerful enough for productivity tasks for 20 years, excepting browser-based software. The two main problems I ran into were 1) software support at the application layer, and 2) video driver support. There is a herculean effort on the part…

> There is a herculean effort on the part of package maintainers to build software for distros, and no one has been building 32 bit version of software for years, even if it is possible to build from source. There is only a very limited set of software you can use, even CLI software because so many things are built with 64 bit dependencies That seems odd? Debian 12 Bullseye (oldstable) has fully supported i386 port.…

AFAIU the Debian i386 port has effectively required i686 level CPU's for quite a long time (CMOV etc.)? So if he has an older CPU like the Pentium it might not work?

But otherwise, yes, Debian 12 should work fine as you say. Not so long ago I installed it on an old Pentium M laptop I had lying around. Did take some tweaking, turned out that the wifi card didn't support WPA2/3 mixed mode which I had configured on my AP, so I had to downgrade security for the experiment. But video was hopeless, it couldn't even play 144p videos on youtube without stuttering. Maybe the video card (some Intel thing, used the i915 driver) didn't have HW decoding for whatever video encoder youtube uses nowadays (AV1?), or whatever.

Re: Floppinux – An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy, 2025 Edition

#70

Post by urbandw311er »

dirkc wrote: post #38

We used to call the 1.44MB (3.5inch) disk stiffies, since they are rigid, while the physically bigger disks we used to refer to as floppies. And they used to fail all the time, especially when you had something that spanned more than a single disk.

Is that name used with an eyebrow raised, or did that particular double entendre not make it out of the UK?
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